How to Reach Millennials with Print Marketing

by Tim English - VP Superior Business Solutions on April 12, 2018

Digital Captures Attention, but Print Captures Dollars

The other day, as I was preparing material for this current series on the features of print marketing, something occurred to me. Millennials are supposedly “all in” on electronic and digital media, right? Well then, why does “Wired” magazine (one of the prime banner-carriers for electronic technology) still put out a print edition?

In researching the subject, I came across an interview with Nick Thompson, Wired’s editor-in-chief, And after praising the “guaranteed delivery mechanism” of the U.S. Post Office, he went on to explain why a print edition is essential to reach the magazine’s 800,000 monthly readers.

“On the internet, if you get lucky, you can reach more than 800,000 people,” he said. “But you can also put out really good stuff that’s seen by nobody because it doesn’t actually work in the algorithms.”

To me, that’s why no marketing campaign–including those aimed at millennials—can truly succeed without building print marketing into the mix.

Millennials Always Come Home to Print

Quick analogy. If you were trying to reach business travelers headed for a hundred different parts of the world, where would you try to do it? In a hundred different random locations, or at the airport, where you know they will all be coming and going? The answer is obvious.

I don’t think it’s a stretch at all. Think of millennials as those business travelers. And print marketing is their airport.

Research shows that, for all their fascination with digital devices and social media, millennials aren’t much different from you, your parents or grandparents. When it comes time to make a purchase, they use print marketing vehicles to finalize their decisions. In fact:

82 percent of millennials read direct mail from retail brands.

54 percent look forward to receiving printed catalogs in the mail.

75 percent use retail inserts from grocery stores

49 percent use print coupons at the store (they’re both young and smart)

Digital and Print Work Together for Millennials

So go ahead and incorporate digital into your plans; it certainly is a big source of information for all generations, and you might reach them there. But don’t ignore print marketing. Make sure it’s a component of your plans because you can be confident you will reach them through print. Knitting both together into a seamless plan is actually your best path to success.

Choose the Print Partner Voted “Best” by its Customers

Superior Business Solutions recently earned the “Best of Print and Digital” award for the second straight year. We’re especially proud of that honor because our customers were the ones doing the voting.

We’re also proud of our ISO certification; it is your assurance that our services are effective, consistent and customer-focused. We’ve been helping customers grow their businesses for nearly 100 years now, and we would love the chance to help you grow yours. Contact Superior today for a free print marketing consultation.